How to Save a Life
by marianna
Summary: Song!fic! AU after 2.01, written for the loveathons 'lessens learned' challenge over at livejournal. LoganVeronica oneshot.


_As he begins to raise his voice _

_You lower yours and grant him one last choice_

You don't want to do this. He's looking at you like you're about to rip his heart out, and it's at this point that you actually think you might be. You don't want to. You don't want this. You don't want to be the one to hurt him, but he's going to-he'll do it to himself, and you've already-you've already lost so much. You wouldn't be able to bear it if you lost him too. Not like that. Not mingled with such stupidity. He means too much. Already he means too much, and you've just started.

"I kept thinking that if I just stuck by you, that you'd get past this," You pause for a second, because you don't really know what _this_ is, and you look down at your still twined hands, looking dead and disconnected at your laps. "This…phase. And that you'd be you again." His eyes are unreadable and his face is a mix of anger and sadness that you know isn't just a mask.

"Are you breaking up with me?" His hands are shaking beneath your own, and you want to squeeze, you want to comfort him, you want to make it better, but you can't, because the look on his face is your fault, and there's nothing you can do.

"I can't stay with you!" Your voice is breaking and you feel the tears beginning to stream down your cheeks. You can practically hear what he's thinking. _Where the hell do you get off crying, Veronica? This is your fault. _"Not with you and your toadies cruising around at night and hatching plans, refusing to let everything get back to normal. Someone's gonna get _killed_, Logan." His face changes then. He's still upset, to be sure, but the anger wins the battle waging on his face.

"Someone already has, or did you forget already? And half the people in this town think I did it." _Are you one of them?_ The implication hangs in the air, you feel your lungs constrict because he has every right to be angry. You don't want to do this. It's _killing_ you to do this, doesn't he see that? But if anything were to happen to him, you wouldn't be able to bear it. Can't he _understand_ that? "And those people you call _toadies_, Veronica? They're my friends; they've got my back." His friends. Right. Not two months ago he was kicking Dick Casablancas out of his house for calling you a cheap whore, and now they're back to being bosom buddies. That's what makes you the angriest-all of his righteous indignation fizzles after a while, and everything falls back into place, back as it used to be, the fallout be damned. You really hate that. It makes you wonder, after the dust settles, where will you be? Will you mean anything to him anymore? Judging by the look on his face, you think not, and it only makes you angrier, because he'll always mean something to you, and he knows it. He's got to.

"It's not about protection, Logan. It's about _pride_."

"Pride. What the hell does pride have to do with it?"

"And the thing that I can't stand is that…" You have to get this out. If you don't, he'll convince you to let him stay-it won't be much of a battle, and then, and then you'll constantly be panicking. Constantly worried, and you don't think you can handle that. You _know_ you can't. "I'm pretty sure there's a part of you that's having fun with this." You're sure of it. Or you were sure. And you're less sure now, as he stares at you incredulously, eyes wide and even stormier than before.

"Fun? Fun? My mom is dead! Lilly is dead! My father is a murderer and the only person I still care about in the whole fucking world is _dumping_ me. You really think I'm having fun?" Before you can answer, before you can stop him and say _no, I don't, it was a mistake, I was wrong, I love you, please don't leave_, he's slamming out of the apartment, not looking back. You can't really blame him.

_As he goes left and you stay right _

_Between the lines of fear and blame _

_You begin to wonder why you came_

"Can I talk to you?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Really nice, Logan. I just…I marvel at your people skills every day, you know that?" You want to roll your eyes. He has no business being nice to you. If he had treated you the way you'd treated him, you wouldn't be able to stomach breathing the same air, let alone this closely in a crowded hallway.

"I don't have to be nice to you, Mars, and people skills are obviously wasted. Say, shouldn't your boyfriend be skulking around, looking for you, anyway?" He glances around the hallway pointedly, but you don't have to. You know exactly where Duncan is, although you doubt he'd care about you talking to Logan. He doesn't care for much these days.

"If I recall correctly, _you_ were the skulker. But Duncan's not my boyfriend anymore. I would've thought that you of all people, Neptune High _royalty_ would've known _that_. Let's be honest here, you did, didn't you? Gosh, talking to you is like rubbing salt in wounds, you know that?" Your tone is more cutting than you'd wanted it to be, but your smile is in place, and you really can't help it, he's not making this easy. Not that you'd honestly expected him to.

"So is this you trying to get me back? I know the old adage says that I'm supposed to be upset about your moving on to greener pastures, but hey, I have too. Although, if you're looking for a 2am fuck buddy, Dick'd probably be interested. He'll fuck anything with legs though, so I wouldn't feel all that special about it; if I were you, that is. I don't really care about _what_ Dick fucks." The insinuation is clear as he tweaks your cheek and as he passes you, his eyes are dark and impenetrable.

"I'm worried about you." He stiffens, you can tell even though he's walked a few feet away, and there are countless people milling around him, stopping to stare in awe, not-so-whispered words seeming louder every moment.

"Why does that sound so familiar, Mars? Could you have said those words to me before? Or maybe this is déjà vu?" He comes closer; finger tapping against his chin, fire in his eyes at the ready, his lips quirked into a scornful grin.

"Logan-"

"Veronica," He mocks, and even though this is supposed to be all surface, bouncing off of him like nothing, you can hear the anger in his voice.

"Forget it. I don't even know why I bothered." You try to keep your shoulders from slumping. You don't care about him, you don't care that he's still on his stupid warpath and that the end of it is probably near. You don't. You hear him sigh behind you, and you want to turn around, you want to apologize and make it all better, but you can't.

Being wrong _really_ sucks.

_He smiles politely back at you _

_You stare politely right on through_

"We could be wrong, Veronica. I could've heard the name wrong." Your dad is trying to be comforting, but he isn't, and you just need him to stop as you walk faster through the doors of the Neptune Memorial ER. You need all the noise to stop, and you need to breathe, and relax because you can't both be hysterical. Not that he's hysterical. Your father is rarely ever hysterical, and you have no idea how _Logan_ is, but you're not going to let anything happen to him. You're going to take care of him like you should have done all those months ago. He's not going to have to go this alone; you'll be there and-

"Veronica Mars?" The girl is young. She can't be more than 15, and she's young and blonde and beautiful and for a second, you're startled because you have no idea who she is or how she knows you.

"Uh. Yeah. Can I help you?" She's staring at you with a contempt in her eyes completely unexpected from someone so young; especially someone so young who you've never even seen before.

"What are you doing here?" Her pretty blue eyes are filled with tears, and you instantly feel bad. The poor kid probably has a loved one locked somewhere in this hospital, and she's scared. It has nothing to do with you.

"A, um-" You aren't sure that it's any of her business, but answer anyway. She probably doesn't know better than to ask. "A friend of mine was brought in about an hour ago, and I wanted to make sure he was Okay." You smile tightly. You aren't exactly sure how convincing it is, but it's still a smile, and you're surprised when she continues to frown at you.

"You're calling yourself a friend? He _hates_ you. He told me so." She's now bordering on hysterics, and you wonder if it's an affliction everyone faces when coming into the emergency room.

"Excuse me?" The room is starting to go black around the edges. After the mess with Duncan and with Meg, and of course with Logan, you hadn't exactly been welcomed back into the world of the '09ers with open arms, but there was never this amount of naked hatred. At least you hadn't thought there had been. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about." Your voice is faint as a medical tech pushes out of the swinging white doors, his face grim.

"Keith," His voice is almost silent, or maybe you just can't hear it from all of the rushing in your ears, but your dad's face remains impassive, and as much bad blood has passed between him and Logan, you hope he'd at least be upset if he'd-_no_. The girl is jumping to her feet, obviously more privy to the conversation than you, her thin pink scarf bobbling, her eyes worried but relieved.

"So he's alright?" Her voice, when not focusing on you, reminds you of who you used to be, cotton candy sweet, complete with bubbling giggle and starry eyes. You don't want to hate her but you do. And then it dawns on you who she is, and how much greener Logan's new pastures really are, and you hate her even more.

"Yes, Veronica, he's doing fine." Your head snaps up, because the tech obviously thinks she's you, and you can see her cheeks flush in anger.

"Can I go see him?" She's apparently bypassed her that emotion, completely ignoring the mishap, instead of throwing her head back and screaming her name out, which you'd be sorely tempted to do. Your father says something to the tech that you're sure not even she can hear, than turns back to face you.

"You ready?" He asks, his brown eyes steady and unwavering. You want to say no. You'd known this was going to happen to him. You'd known that he would be hurt, and in trouble and that there would be nothing you could do. You'd also known that there would be someone there to replace you, and you nod, as you pass her, a knife twisting in your gut as she glares at you, slumping back into the seat she'd vacated.

"Veronica?" The rims of his eyes are black and blue, and there's a sling over his left arm. He winces slightly as he moves, obviously surprised as hell at your appearance. Keith nods, and after a moment of non-verbal communication excluding you, exits the room, closing the door with a loud _click_ behind him. "What are you doing here?" What _are_ you doing here? He has someone else there, someone younger and more innocent, someone who hasn't been hurt or broken and who hasn't done those things to him in return. Someone better, and you're surprised at the sob that catches in your throat.

"Dad…heard that you'd been hurt. I wanted to make sure you were Okay." He nods, but you can't read his eyes, you don't know what he thinks, and you have to turn your back for moment, because this is so much worse than you'd always feared, and you hate that you were right. You'd never wanted to be so wrong in your entire life.

"Uh, thank you." The room falls to silence, and you're not surprised. There is so much damage between you, so much pain and anger, and you were so wrong in coming here. _Mars: 0, Echolls: 2,_ obviously, except he doesn't seem to be playing anymore.

"Listen, I should go. I just wanted…" You don't know what to say. You don't know what you'd wanted and you don't know why you'd dragged your dad out here when you could have just as easily sent a card, or called and it would have done the same thing. The only difference being that you could fake call waiting and hang up on the phone. It's kind of harder to do in person. "I should go." You smile again, jamming your hands in the pockets of your worn black hoodie. He smiles back, but it isn't heated. There's nothing in his eyes but indifference, and you'd never thought something so inconsequential could hurt so badly.

_Or he'll say he's just not the same _

_And you'll begin to wonder why you came_

"Hey." Slamming your locker closed with your elbow you blink as you glance up, surprise etching itself across your features as you take him in. He almost looks worse than he had at the hospital, and your stomach clenches just thinking about it.

"Hi, Logan. What's up?" There's a faux cheerfulness in your voice that you hate, and your pitch is definitely an octave higher than normal, but he makes you nervous, especially standing so close, even though you know for a fact that he doesn't give a crap about you anymore. You really can't blame him, and you're going to have to stop doing that.

"You should stick to the Nancy Drew stuff, Mars. Your acting skills totally need work," He comments as he falls in step with you. You glance at him, outraged, until you catch the smile tipping at his lips, and you can't help but smiling back-or at least trying to.

"You always know just what to say to woo a girl," You mock, batting your eyelashes up at him comically, until you catch the look in his eyes, and your blood runs cold. "Logan?"

"So you met Hannah." _Hannah?_ Oh, the Cotton Candy Blonde. You can't pretend him asking about her doesn't sting, so you just nod, so you won't have to break out your high-pitched voice again. "She feels really threatened by you."

"Threatened? God, Logan she's got at least 5 inches on me." He frowns at your very lame attempt at a joke, and you go back to walking the hallway in silence.

"Listen, after hearing me talk such shit about you-"

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I mean it, 'Ronica, I wasn't nice," His fingers reach up to rub the back of his neck and the movement is so familiar that you have to bite down on your lip hard to keep from crying out. "And she got the wrong impression of you. Hell, I guess _I_ had the wrong impression of you." You nod, because what are you supposed to do? Kicking and screaming won't get you anywhere, and you aren't even sure exactly what you want.

"Listen, I'm sorry about last summer, I-" He holds his not slinged hand up, the look in his eyes forcing you to stop.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. It was my fault." His voice is deep and low, and you have to fight to keep your eyes from closing, to keep from enjoying this too much.

"No, Logan I-" You aren't sure what would have happened if Hannah hadn't bounced over then, fractured bits of fluorescent light dancing halos across her hair, her eyes open and wide and trusting, and you feel sick to your stomach.

"Hi, Veronica." She says shyly, wrapping her arm around Logan's free one, clearly marking her territory, even though her voice is sickly sweet.

"I have to go." You mutter, turning away from them and her too bright young eyes.

"Thanks for visiting at the hospital!" She calls to your back. "We really appreciated it!"

You really wish you didn't hate her.

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend _

_Somewhere along in the bitterness_

There are times when you really hate it that your dad has to go out of town so frequently, and this is definitely one of those nights. You're not afraid of the dark (not since you were 12 anyway), but you are unabashedly terrified of thunder and lightning, and it just seems to be your luck that both are happening and right outside your apartment. You're walking on eggshells all night, just waiting for the power to go out, so you can truly go crazy, so when it does, at approximately 10:47, you're not as surprised as you usually are. It's the knock at the door, not even 20 minutes later that really gets at you. You're sure if there's a horror movie about a girl getting chopped to pieces in the middle of a rainstorm, but it would definitely be the one you'd be most terrified of.

"Logan?" You breathe as you crack the door open, barely an inch, just so you could see out. He's drenched from head to toe, and clutching the sides of his jacket in a way that reminds you so vividly of his visit to you after his mother's death, that you have to blink, because the memory is so arresting.

"Can I come in?" His teeth are practically chattering, so you move to the side, motioning for him to enter, and outstretching your hand for the remains of his jacket. "What?" He asks, when you stare at him for a long moment, surprise etching itself across your features. "Think I'm going to attack or something?"

"As attractive as I know you think I am, Echolls, I seriously doubt you would come all the way across town in this weather just to terrorize me. I just wanted you to take off your jacket."

"Ah, undressing me. Trying to get _my_ defenses down?" He looks completely ridiculous with his brow quirked like that, but you laugh anyway, because you're not alone anymore, and because it feels good being around him like this. You can't remember the last time if felt good to be around anybody, even Wallace.

"More like saving you from freezing to death, but whatever you need to believe," You murmur, trying not to stare at the way his t-shirt clings to his chest when he hands you the damp corduroy. "Want me to put this in the dryer?" You ask, turning your back to him and putting it in anyway, without waiting for his response.

"Wait a second, Mars." He says when you walk back into the room, his eyes narrowed as he mock glares at you, his head titled to the side. "All last summer, you bitched at me for not appreciating what I had, and how if you had a washer/dryer in the house, you would never complain as much as I did…what did you do all that time, hide the thing so I wouldn't see it?" You can see the smirk at the edge of his lips, and you can't help smiling back.

"It was the first thing dad bought with the money from his advance." You reply quietly, transfixed at the way he's gnawing on his bottom lip, noticing that his eyes never leave your face.

"Well, it's good to know your righteous indignation wasn't wasted. And look at that, it paid off." Your surprised to realize you're standing much closer to him than you had a moment ago. His chest is suddenly very close, and your fingers are itching to rest against it, even though that's crazy, and he has a girlfriend, and there was a definite reason why you broke up last summer, and it was true, everything you had worried about, came true, and you _still_ got hurt, and you can't risk caring that much again. "Do you realize," He murmurs, his voice much softer than it had been a second ago. "That when that brain of yours," He reaches up and touches your hair, his fingers splaying in the silky edges. "Moves a mile a minute, every single thought shows on your face?" You can't speak, because now his hands are cupping your face and tipping up your chin so that you have to look into his eyes.

"I, um-" You really can't think when he's touching you, and you want to close your eyes and just enjoy it, because who knows when the next time you feel like this will be, and you don't want him to stop, you'd never wanted him to stop, and your breath catches because you can tell he knows what you're thinking.

"Veronica," He whispers the second before he fits his lips over yours, his hands splaying across your back, just light enough so that you could wriggle free if you wanted to, but secure and strong, and all the questions you'd had like, _what about Hannah?_ And how did he know to come out here tonight? They're lost, because he's kissing you and your mind is blank.

"Ohmygod," You breathe as his lips dip away from your own, and down your neck, to the opening in your pajama top. After a moment, his lips close over your nipple and you're on the ground, and your shirt is off, and you aren't sure how any of it happened, but you don't want it to stop. "Logan," His name is on your lips, but his lips are crushing them before you're sure if you got the word out, and it's searing and they're branding your skin, and your hair, and you're almost positive there'll be marks in the morning.

"Oh god, _Veronica_." He murmurs, and suddenly you're cool all over, and then he's inside you, and your eyes pop open because it's unexpected, and you aren't sure if it's the right thing to do, and you still don't know about Hannah-but then he moves, and if you'd thought you'd lost consciousness before, you were wrong. You're mind is deliciously blank except for a few, _oh god, oh god harder_'s and quite a few, _Logan PLEASE_'s, that seem to be ripped from your throat of their own volition. He wraps his warms around you, instead of bracing them on either side of your head, and you cocoon yourself within him.

You drift off to sleep with a smile on your face with his lips resting peacefully against your forehead.

_And I would have stayed up with you all night _

_Had I known how to save a life_

You wake up to sunshine, you can tell as your senses kick in, even though you haven't opened your eyes yet. It's pretty much the _only_ cheerful bit. Your back is raw and burned, and you ache in places you didn't even know _existed_. Stretching your arms above your head, you wince as your fist connects with the wood of the island, and your eyes snap open as you realize you're naked, and on the floor, and remember last night and _Logan_.

"I know that face," A voice says from behind you, and you know that it's him because you'd know him anywhere, and you know that he knows you were thinking about him, because he knows you better than anyone, and you just want to crawl into a hole and die. "That's the holy fuck, what did I do last night, one. Am I right? Am I?" You can barely breathe as you take him in, in all his splendor. The morning light certainly loves him, and you find your breath catching as you brave a glance into his eyes. "Morning, _Sugarpuss_." He drawls, and he's caught your lips and dragged you over to him before you can think of an appropriate response.

"Do you realize," You mutter a moment later, your breathing labored as he nips at the sensitive spot at your neck. "That my father could come home at any minute and find us like this?"

"Is it a turn on for you, V? Cuz I could pretty much spend the rest of my life here." The words are muffled, but you hear them, and a shiver of pleasure careens up your spine.

"What are we doing, Logan? This is crazy." You manage after a moment, tearing your lips from his, trying in vain to shimmy off of him.

"Veronica, Veronica, Veronica," He teases; his eyes light as they look in yours. "When will you realize that they don't write love songs about sane people? The masses would rebel and be bored out of their _minds_."

"You hate me," You murmur a few moments later, gasping in the early morning light, as he wraps himself even more tightly around you.

"I never hated you."

"You're dating somebody-oh god, LOGAN."

"God, I love it when you moan my name." His entire body is grinning, you can feel it, and you swat his arm, because you can, and because it's so close, and he's so close, and you never want to stop touching him.

"Why did we stop doing this?"

"We never did this."

"Yeah…dumb idea. Why?" You're sleepy again, and very sated, and you don't want to know why he left Hannah and came to you, and you don't want to know why he doesn't hate you as much as he should or any of that. You just want to stay here, cocooned beneath him forever, maybe longer, if you can swing it.

"Veronica,"

"Mmm?" You murmur, not looking at him on purpose. His we-have-to-talk voice is making an appearance, and even though you'd wanted to talk about it a few minutes ago, you don't now. You don't want to know. You don't.

"Would you look at me, please?"

"Would you get upset if I told you I didn't want to?"

"That'll make it harder, but not impossible." You smirk, then turn towards him, burrowing your head against his chest, and kissing his forearm before leaning back a little and cracking your eyes open, smiling sunnily at him.

"Are you pregnant?" You deadpan, smiling for real this time at the obvious amusement in his eyes.

"I can't say that I am."

"Then what, Mr. Echolls, is the problem?"

"You saved my life, Veronica."

"What?" You can feel the ease of the morning slipping away as you detangle yourself from him, pulling your discarded hoodie over your shoulders and balancing your head on your knees.

"When you kicked me out of here last summer. You saved my life."

"So then this was what? Repayment?" You can't help the bit of anger that creeps into your voice. Your motives last summer had been purely selfish, and a peel of guilt curls itself in your stomach.

"It was so fucked up…and I just hated them…I hated everybody for thinking that I killed Felix and god, I wanted to kill my father for hurting you, and for…and I just…" He can't seem to find the words, which is perfectly fine with you. You aren't sure if you could handle sweeping speeches about Epic Love and life saving. "I wouldn't have known…it was 'cause of you that I learned…I...just, thanks. Okay?" You stare at him, dumbfounded. A little more than eight months ago, you'd callously treated him terribly, and now he's thanking you?

"I-" You start, but you have no idea what to say.

"You don't have to say anything," He responds, kissing the empty words away, and letting you in again.


End file.
